Life on the Worldwide House Station (ISS) is something however unusual. The microgravity circumstances imply you spend most of your time floating across the place, and the views from the windows are special, to say the least. Popping exterior requires donning protective clothing, and going to the toilet is a more complicated process than again on terra firma.
And because of the ISS orbiting Earth at round 17,000 mph, astronauts stationed there witness 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets in each 24-hour interval. So how will the present crew — NASA astronauts Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, Don Pettit, and Nick Hague, along with Russian cosmonauts Aleksandr Gorbunov, Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner — know when to have a good time the arrival of 2025?
As 2024 involves an in depth at this time, the Exp 72 crew will see 16 sunrises and sunsets whereas hovering into the New Yr. Seen listed here are a number of sunsets pictured through the years from the orbital outpost. pic.twitter.com/DdlvSCoKo1
— Worldwide House Station (@Space_Station) December 31, 2024
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Effectively, when earthlings started dwelling aboard the house station almost 1 / 4 of a century in the past, house officers spent a while eager about this very challenge earlier than selecting an answer. They determined to set the clocks aboard the ISS to the Common Time Clock (UTC), a time customary that’s carefully associated to the Greenwich Imply Time (GMT) zone in London.
It implies that a brand new 12 months formally begins aboard the space-based laboratory at 7 p.m. ET (4 p.m. PT) on January 31, which is midnight UTC/GMT. In order you learn this, it’s already 2025 aboard the house station!
It’s true that every crew member might need to see within the new 12 months in accordance with the time zone of their house on Earth. However contemplating the U.S. and Russia have a complete of 17 time zones between them, this might make for one very lengthy get together.
What normally occurs is that the astronauts choose an agreed time and meet up for a celebration inside one of many station’s many modules. They’ll take pleasure in some particular meals treats, although a champagne celebration is out of the query as alcohol isn’t allowed on the ISS.
Two astronauts who earlier this 12 months by no means imagined they’d be in orbit on this particular night are American astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. The pair arrived on the ISS in June on the primary crewed flight of the Starliner spacecraft. However a number of technical points with the Starliner meant that for security causes, the car needed to return house with out them. Williams and Wilmore at the moment are expected to return to Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon in March. It’s been fairly an journey for the pair, and seeing in a brand new 12 months 250 miles above Earth might be certainly be a reminiscence they’ll cherish perpetually.
